Intro to Psychology
Every day we are developing no matter our age, but it is how we develop children that will tell a tremendous amount an individual. How a child developments is fundamentally important at a young age as it affects all aspect of their lives once the child matures. Throughout the class, we looked at many theorists during the course of the semester. The theorists opened up our minds to a world that we have never seen before and concepts about child development we have never been taught but have seen in the practical work we do every week. What makes humans unique is the ability that we have to interpret the language being used, as Lois Bloom and Margaret Lahey describe in their book Language Development and Language Disorders “language is like a code, it is a means of representation” Although, everyone is able to interpret the use of language some interpret it more than others. This delay in language, we have learned, could be for a variety of reasons. The characteristics of a child will depend on: how they were brought up, who they were brought up by, what kind of condition they were brought up in, what kind of parents the child was brought up by, if was the child brought up in poverty, etc. Language is a key part in anyone’s life as it is a major form of communication. Language is what separates us from other species to be intellectual and to rule society. Language development is important in a child’s life as it will pave the way for successful communication with various other children and other people in society. By means of talking to one another when we are young they stated, development of language skills offer a critical foundation for children’s school readiness and academic achievement. There are many reasons why children’s language development could be affected. Poverty not only puts a strain on language development for the child but many other cognitive and academic problems as well. Living in poverty can seriously affect a child’s life as the child would not be able to go to school or would do poorly because there was nothing to eat at home so they would not be able concentrate. The child when old enough would have to work all day to make money for the family and many other harsh realities throughout their lifetime. It is important to understand that poverty does not have a direct consequence to language development but it is things associated with poverty such as parental education, health care, child care, low socioeconomic status and many other variables that play an influence in language development.
The question to look at first is why the child is in poverty? Most often it is because their family is too. The mother and father are the ones who most often raise the child and if the parents have no education this will in turn show the job that they have will not be sufficient enough to take care of that household. For most children the mother is the first person to teach the child to read, but if the parents are never home (ie. hours of their job) and have received no education when they were a child, they cannot pass any knowledge to their child or help them develop.
Personally thinking about this topic about how a parent should be there for a child I thought of a scenario that could explain that the fact parental education does play role in children language development. Think about a mother that has a PhD who is a professor at a university and a mother who dropped out of high school, works on minimum wage, and 12 hour shifts a day. The comparison is unimaginable. The amount of resources a mother with a PhD has, compared to a mother who can barely afford to put a warm meal on the table for her family. Parents are the main resource a child has, as children are too young to know how to obtain information from various sources. Resources are very important to a child’s language development as it will be the books and educational toys that will help the child development language optimally.
The odds of a child to proceed greater than an undergraduate degree in university are slim if the parents of that child did not go to a postsecondary institution, as 34 percent of whose parents had a postsecondary degree had earned a graduate degree, compared to 19 percent whose parents had not attended college (National Centre for Educational Statistics, 2006). Though these stats pertain to attending an education institution, it can be related to language development because one would need to develop those language skills of reading and writing, as they are vitally important in all programs, to attend university or college. Not having the optimal language skills would not take someone too far in an education program of any sort as reading and writing are the most fundamental part of schooling. As the mother is usually the first teacher to the child it is important for a mother to have a strong education background.
Although there are many reasons why a child’s language development is affected, social class is another example why. In a child’s early life, Benson states, language is fundamental for the processes to think. He goes on to say, that children who do not have the opportunity to learn optimal language skills and development higher cognitive processes, as well the inability to solve various problems and think independently will have negative effects on the child. A child growing up in a family with a high socioeconomic status will most probably grow up to have an optimal language development, compared to their opposite counterparts who have a low socioeconomic status, as made in the point above. Not having these basic elements of life could seriously impact a child’s language development. I feel there is a direct link with school and language development as, if a child does not attend school their development could be affect as it will not allow their vocabulary to expand and the reasons why their language could be affected is due to the poverty they are living in. Affording to have a parent at home that could play educational games, read with the child, so that the child is exposed to many words and phrases, compared to a child who is unable to have his or her parents at home to help them with homework or simply be there for them. Even when they are back from physically demanding job, they are unable to be there for their child as it is simply too tiring for the parent, thus not exposing the child to words and phrases like the other child. That is why the first children to read mostly come from families that are in high social class.
Most of the students who went to my high school lived in housing buildings which were funded by the government, this was an immediate sign they had a low socioeconomic status. Judging by all the facts that I have seen through my research, I believe my high school did have the most educated individuals because at a young age they were not able to afford the resources that other were able to afford.